Nothing announces the end of summer like the beginning of college football. The weekends ahead will be booked, the seat on the couch will be engraved from hours of cheering, anticipation, joy and sorrow as you watch your team go through wins and losses. The college football landscape looks a lot different coming into the 2024 season. Conferences have changed, along with the playoff system, but at its heart, it is still the same sport we love.
Money in sports is more prominent than ever. Since recent rules have changed over the years, students are now able to be compensated for their work. With the higher payment of athletes, schools need to find a way to capitalize also, which is best found in media deals. So, over the last nine months, the Power Five conferences thought an expansion was in order – with one conference shrinking. I hope this season is a stepping stone for future seasons because what we have right now does not make sense.
Here are the additions to each of the Power Five conferences.
- The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) now extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific by welcoming in Cal, SMU, and Stanford, totaling 17 members.
- The Big Ten (Big 10) is sitting as the biggest conference with 18 schools in the 2024-25 season adding Oregon, USC, UCLA, and Washington.
- The Big Twelve (Big XII) is now at 16 schools, with the addition of Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah. The conference lost Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC.
- The Pac-12 (the only undefeated conference going into week three) lost 10 of its 12 members. The University of Arizona (now in the Big XII), Arizona State (now in the Big XII), University of California, Berkeley (now in the ACC), the University of Colorado Boulder (Big XII), University of Oregon (Big 10), Stanford University (ACC), University of California, Los Angeles (Big 10), University of Southern California (Big 10), University of Utah (Big XII) and the University of Washington (Big 10).
- The Pac-12 announced this past Tuesday the addition of four teams before the 26-27 season: Boise State, Colorado State and Fresno State all from the Mountain West Conference (a non-Power Five conference).
- The Southeastern Conference (SEC) went from 14 to 16 with the acceptance of the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Oklahoma from the Big 12.
One could say that these conferences have gotten out of hand. As I said, the Atlantic Coast Conference now stretches to the Pacific, the Big 12 has more than 16 members, the Big 10 has almost twice its namesake, the Pac-12 only has two and soon to be six, the Southeastern Conference is the only one that is closest to its name, but even still has started its westward journey with its new additions. I think the conferences need to be either renamed so that teams can stay where they are or completely realigned geographically. At this point, it seems that the pride in having tradition has been tarnished. All the schools are trying to follow the money, so I believe a rebrand is in order.
We do not need to have teams that are on opposite ends of the country being conference rivals. Rivalries should be local, Tennessee fans against Alabama fans, Texas vs. Oklahoma, Ohio State vs. Michigan, Duke vs. North Carolina. The rivals should be in the state or the next one over. Ohio State fans have always been a stone’s throw away from Michigan fans but now they will have to mail that stone to California or Washington. Aside from fans and stones traveling across the country, some players will travel 2,790.8 miles from Palo Alto, California to Chapel Hill, North Carolina battle each other in a conference match, then travel back home and go to class with their homework completed. Playing a sport is a full-time job for students, and the toll the job takes to perform well in school and athletics is getting heavier and heavier, at least now collegiate athletes can profit from it.
Along with the creation of NIL deals, the NCAA has changed the rules on transferability. At its basics, student-athletes are able to enter the “Transfer Portal”, change schools and play for different teams without sitting a year. I am okay with students being paid to play the sport they love, even if some of the athletes (whom I am older than) are making millions of dollars as a quarterback because of who they are related to. The Portal also sounds like a beneficial idea as well if used correctly. However, the combination of the two, players transferring schools and conferences because of the money they could be making, is where I would draw the line. This takes away from recruiting players for the pride of playing for certain schools.
If players are tired of the team’s performance, they do not need to leave. Being a part of a team is being a part of a brotherhood and facing what the season has to bring together, through thick and thin. I need to know you have my back when we go to battle and that you won’t leave a few weeks later. The changes of the offseason in college ball has become too similar to the NFL free agency, watching the news to see how teams have spent their money on players and how long they will be playing for that team.
If this is the way the conferences and compensations are meant to be, who is shaping up to be the best this season? Do these additions of teams bode well for the future? The SEC would certainly say so. Texas of the SEC beat Michigan of the Big 10, the former champions, by 19 points with ease. The Southeastern Conference is known for its Goliaths of Georgia and Alabama, and we have yet to see if they feel threatened, but David might be training somewhere.
Along with the new alignment of the conferences, the playoffs tripled in size, with 12 teams now competing for the trophy. I am all for it. It provides the Cinderella story that March Madness offers. It gives any school with grit a shot to raise another banner with pride. Before, only four teams were accepted into the playoffs and selected by a committee, and, last year, fans had some outbursts with their decisions. Undefeated Florida State was voted out of the tournament because their star quarterback was injured. Now that there are 12 teams allowed to fight, it opens the doors for lower-ranked teams to fight their way through. The four highest-ranked conference champions will receive first-round byes. The remaining teams will play each other in the first round at the home fields of the better seeds or an alternate venue of their choosing; match-ups will be 5–12, 6–11, 7–10 and 8–9.
The season just started and there is still plenty of ball to be played, I am excited to see what the future has in store for us as fans. If my wishes for better conferences do not come true, I am sure we will still cheer from the comfort of our homes. Our best wishes are all for the love of the game, and we are in it for better or worse.